KARACHI, Dec 8: A noted scholar from India said here on Wednesday that the Indian government was not to blame for Urdu's decline in that country as it was the people who did not take due interest, for one reason or another, in the language despite a strong infrastructure for its promotion being in place.
Dr Irteza Karim, writer and chairman of the Urdu department at Delhi University, was informally speaking at the Anjuman Taraqqi-i-Urdu Pakistan on the present status of Urdu in India.
“I'm often asked what the future of Urdu is,” he began his speech. “I say: what is your future because the future of Urdu is linked to your future?”
The educationist said: “It is a sad reality of our times that the culture which promoted the use of this beautiful and sweet language is no longer there. The inheritors of the language are themselves disowning it.
“In the India of today you get strange looks even if you subscribe to an Urdu newspaper. I remember a time when there used to be a stall of Urdu novels and digests at the railway station, but these days you are embarrassed even to be seen with an Urdu periodical and are far happier carrying a glossy English publication, never mind the fact that you understand it or not.”
He said the Urdu language had come to be attributed to the Muslim community.
“But it would be like lying to yourself if you think that you are succeeding at hiding your identity this way. The medium of education, including Islamic education, is mostly in Hindi.”
He, however, said that efforts to salvage the language were being made in Hyderabad, Bihar and Maharashtra.
Speaking on the attitude of the Indian government towards Urdu, he said: “We naturally assume that the progress of Urdu is the government's responsibility but, politics aside, we in India have an Urdu academy in every province. “Plenty of work in the form of converting education material into Urdu is also under way. The annual budget reserved for Urdu is Rs80 million and there is provision for another Rs10 or Rs20 million if we need more,” he said.
“The same is the case with the other subjects. So there is no discrimination on the government's part. Therefore, the fault of Urdu losing its position among the public in India rests solely on our shoulders.”
Dr Karim said many Muslim families in India today wanted their children to refrain from speaking Urdu. “It is said that they do so because there is no scope for Urdu, which is not true. The jobs are there, of course. Expertise in any language will help you get jobs there. There is a Rs30,000 monthly scholarship, too, for brilliant students as there are for the other subjects and yet the language is in decline.”
Another reason for this, he said, was that the teachers of Urdu were fulfilling just a 9-5 duty. But the Urdu language at this point could not afford a half-hearted approach from its teachers. “There is a good 35-year gap between my taking over as chairman of the Urdu department at Delhi University and the great writer, poet and critic Khwaja Ahmed Farooqi who established the institution,” he said while adding that between them there had been 12 other department heads. Delhi Urdu Akhbar
“And there were these 17 to 18 cupboards in the department that no one had cared to even open during this while,” he said. “I found some seven to eight rare manuscripts and old copies of the . Today I have successfully compiled this treasure into two book volumes.”He said his efforts for salvaging history had even earned him several enemies in India, “but it is still important for me to carry out my duty for the promotion of Urdu”.
The talk ended with the scholar presenting a copy of the volumes with a CD of the manuscripts to the Anjuman Taraqqi-i-Urdu Pakistan so that it could be reproduced here.
“The material carries valuable insight into an important part of Muslim history. It is meant to exchange hands and to be spread among our people,” he concluded.